Heather Mills claims journalist admitted hacking her voicemail

A SENIOR Mirror Group journalist is said to have admitted hacking voicemails left for Heather Mills by Sir Paul McCartney in 2001.

Sir Paul's former wife said that after he left the voicemail, the journalist rang her, quoting parts of the recording. When challenged about how the newspaper knew what had been said, Ms Mills said the journalist admitted the message had been hacked.

She told BBC's Newsnight programme that in early 2001, she had had a row with her then boyfriend Sir Paul, who later left a conciliatory message on her voicemail while she was away in India.

According to Ms Mills, a senior Mirror Group Newspapers journalist rang her and "started quoting verbatim the messages from my machine".

She claimed that she challenged the journalist, saying: "You've obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story … I'll go to the police."

She said the journalist responded: "OK, OK, yeah we did hear it on your voice messages. I won't run it."

The journalist was not Piers Morgan, who was the editor of the Daily Mirror at the time, a programme spokesman said.

Mr Morgan siad: "I have no knowledge of any conversation any executive from other newspapers at Trinity Mirror may or may not have had with Heather Mills."